A successful forensic accountant should have the following skills: critical thinking,
reasoning, and communication (Rufus et al, 2015). Critical thinking involves questioning
assumptions and exercising judgement based on knowledge gained from previous
experiences and observations. Reasoning involves drawing inferences and conclusions
based on the known/assumed facts. Using reasoning allows a forensic accountant to
understand a behavior or event. The third skill, communication refers to a forensic
accountant’s ability to communicate results. Forensic accountants should have the
ability to explain information or results in a way that someone with no knowledge or
accounting could understand. This is because forensic accountants can be used as expert
witnesses in trials and need to be able to communicate their findings to the judge/jury
in a way they can understand. Depending on who you ask, there are other skills a
forensic accountant should possess including their investigative ability, ability to identify
key issues, auditing skills, investigative intuitiveness, an ability to see the big picture,
etc. (Davis et al).
Forensic accounting in general is something I would really enjoy doing in the future, but
I believe I would enjoy being a forensic analyst with the FBI. I grew up watching crime
shows and mysteries so the idea of trying to figure out if a crime was committed and
how has always sounded really cool. Additionally, my first accounting professor actually
had a student go on to work as a forensic accountant for the FBI and was able to make
the arrest after spending over a year trying to determine how this person was
committing the crime. That story was what showed me there were more areas of
accounting than just writing the books and what got me interested in earning my degree
in accounting.
Davis, Charles, Farrell, Ramona, Ogilby, Suzanne. Characteristics and Skills of the
Forensic Accountant.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170328231005/https://www.aicpa.org/InterestAr
eas/ForensicAndValuation/Resources/PractAidsGuidance/DownloadableDocumen
ts/ForensicAccountingResearchWhitePaper.pdf
Rufus, R.J., Miller, L. S., & Hahn, W. (2015). Forensic Accounting. Pearson Education.
